The Times Ed Board forgot to do the reading on the Transportation Levy
Levy spending breakdown. The Times Ed Board thinks there's too much bicycle safety and not enough maintenance and bridge work. Chart from the Keep Seattle Moving campaign.Just like they did with the 2015 Move Seattle Levy, the Seattle Times Editorial Board once again urged voters to reject the Seattle Transportation Levy. Seattle voters ignored them in 2015, approving the levy by a landslide 59-41. Let's do it again in 2024.
Read our endorsement of Seattle's Proposition 1 and see a breakdown of the proposed investments.
What caught my attention most in their editorial, however, was their accusation that the levy is not an infrastructure plan as much as a political document." Seattle is a democracy, so of course this levy is political. Every public budget and every public policy is passed by elected officials is influenced by advocates with stakes in the decision. It's strange to hear this editorial board pretend that there was a non-political way to craft an initiative to send to voters.
Further, the politicians who crafted this levy were nearly all endorsed by the Seattle Times Editorial Board. Those politicians sought out support from important constituencies like the port, the Chamber of Commerce, major labor unions, transit boosters, and safe streets groups in an attempt to craft a levy that they would all support. That's compromise, and it worked. All those groups representing Seattle residents and businesses are supporting the levy together, one of the few times you'll see all these parties on the same side of a major issue. The transportation levy is an example of what the city can accomplish when everyone works together. It's odd that the Times Editorial Board sees this unity as a bad thing.
This levy was very much not written by the big bad bicycle lobby, whose endorsed candidates did not fare well in last year's City Council races. The Editorial Board tried to paint it that way regardless. They bemoaned that the levy would spend $133.5 million on Bicycle Safety,'" while spending only $330 million for arterial roadway maintenance' and $67 million for pothole repairs." The $133.5 million for bicycle safety will save lives while making up about 9% of the levy. It is a great investment that will do a lot to connect and protect bike routes across the city, but it's not an oversized slice of the budget pie (see chart above). They also cite a survey in which 61% of respondents said Seattle was doing a good job, noting that it's the department's highest score." That's great news. SDOT is doing something well and people have noticed it. That just confirms that our city's bike investments are working. It makes no sense to say, Let's defund the things our city does well." The Editorial Board members must not bike much if they think the city's bike lane network is anywhere close to being complete. This same board once argued that Seattle should be in the vanguard" of safe bike infrastructure. Well, Seattle needs the funding from this levy to get there.
Meanwhile, $397 million for paving work makes up more than a quarter of the levy and is vastly more than the city has invested in road maintenance in modern memory. It is more than the entire 2006 Bridging the Gap Levy. The paving total is more like $420 million when you add in freight projects that are also likely to be paving projects or ~$615 million when you add bridge maintenance or ~$770 million if you add together all the paving, bridge maintenance, traffic signals, freight mobility, and general road work planning.
The Editorial Board oscillates between calling the levy expensive and complaining that it does not include enough funding. They also accuse the levy of not having a plan, yet never once mention the 752-page Seattle Transportation Plan, an extensive document developed over several years incorporating tons of public feedback that is both the policy basis for the levy's funding levels and the plan for how to invest it if voters approve it. Their editorial sounds like an essay by a student who didn't to the reading.
The Board also cast shade on Mayor Bruce Harrell for saying that other funds would be pulled into bridge work besides the levy" and that it could amount to $35 million annually - but there were no guarantees." The mayor is correct. The city consistently seeks out state and federal transportation grants, and it is never clear which grant applications will be successful or when those funds will arrive. Mayor Harrell is right to not make promises about this money because Seattle learned the hard way what happens when you rely on future uncommitted funds. The 2015 Move Seattle campaign made a bunch of promises based on the assumption that federal funding would keep arriving at a similar rate to previous years. Then Trump got elected and all but cut off funds from sanctuary cities" like Seattle. This is one reason the Move Seattle Levy fell so far short on many promises and needed a mid-levy reset. Even without Trump, there could be a national recession or radical Republicans could take hold of the Senate, or any number of things could interrupt an anticipated flow of cash. The Editorial Board seems to be disappointed that the mayor won't just lie to them and say the anticipated funding is guaranteed.
Perhaps the most telling sign of how out of touch the Board is on this levy is that the closest person they could find to a political opponent of the levy was one-term Councilmember Alex Pedersen, whose time as Transportation Chair was ineffective and forgettable. It is worth noting that the Seattle Transportation Plan, the basis for the 2024 levy, was almost entirely crafted during Pedersen's time as Transportation Chair. As an observer of many Transportation Committee meetings (when he bothered to hold them since he cancelled about 25% of them in 2023 not counting holidays and budget season), I'd say he didn't exercise his power in that role to have the kind of major influence on the plan that he could have had. But sure, now that he's out of office he has gripes about it.
I do agree with the Times Editorial Board on one point: Seattle Transportation Levy is not big enough to accomplish everything the city needs to get done. This is why I supported the community push for an even bigger levy, though the mayor and council decided to play it a little more conservative. But even the larger version of the levy would not have been enough. The city built a ton of expensive road infrastructure over the past century without a plan to keep it maintained, and decades of under-funding this work has created an enormous backlog. The proposed levy would represent a major increase in road maintenance, but it's going to take a long time to catch up. The city also has a lot of streets in the north and south ends that are missing sidewalks. The proposed levy includes a huge increase in the sidewalk budget and will make a big difference for many communities, but it's still not enough to build a sidewalk everywhere that needs one.
However, the Times Editorial Board is making the same mistake that a couple Seattle Bike Blog readers expressed recently: That voters should reject this compromise levy in hopes of getting a better one later. There is no realistic path to a better levy if this one fails. If this levy is not approved on what should be a relatively friendly, high-turnout ballot, the city is not going to run an even bigger one on a future lower-turnout ballot. Whether you are hoping for more paving money or more bike lane money, neither of those things will happen if this levy does not pass in November.
Vote YES on Seattle's Proposition 1.